Guiding the Way Forward: Weatherhead’s renewed mission, vision and values

Two years ago, at an Appreciative Inquiry Summit, Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management faculty and staff began writing the school’s next chapter. Since then, the pace of change has only quickened with AI's disruption and its reshaping of economies, shifting societal needs and the demands this places on all of us as stakeholders.

Now more than ever, the world needs a trusted guide, and institutions of higher learning are in the best position to serve this noble purpose. Many of the most pressing challenges of our time are, at their core, management challenges. This is our craft at Weatherhead—and together as a community, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to lead.

We are excited to share an essential component of this strategic roadmap: our mission, vision and values. They are tools to guide action. They reflect who we are as Team Weatherhead, where we are going, and how we will get there.

The mission builds on our legacy as a practice-oriented academic community, leans into our strengths in human and digital domains, and allows us to treat our home base in Cleveland as a living lab that pilots innovation to be scaled globally. It is both aspirational and practical: 

• To transform the world’s most complex challenges into humanity’s greatest breakthroughs 
• Shaping leaders who thrive in complexity and drive intentional change
• Sparking discovery that translates into impactful solutions
• Mobilizing our community to scale impact 

Our vision states who we are becoming as we fulfill our mission: A personal, interconnected, and pathbreaking academic community that catalyzes change at the nexus of business, humanity and technology.

Our values, in turn, are the deliberate behaviors that help guide our daily work and distinguish our approach to management education. Curious, Courageous, Collaborative.

We will use these strategic principles to shape our curriculum and research, choose partners, design engagements and make trade-offs. They are also how we invite all Weatherhead citizens—students, alumni, partners and supporters—into our shared purpose. 

We believe the world is better because Weatherhead exists. Guided by these principles, we will make that truer than ever.

Andrew Medvedev, Dean